Possible Anthrax exposure

There is a possibility that workers at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could have been exposed to anthrax last week. A shot of an anthrax vaccine as well as antibiotics was offered by the CDC. There has been no extraneous illness from those effected and it is not contagious. CDC director Thomas Frieden addressed in a letter to workers, “Based on the investigation to date, CDC believes that other CDC staff, family members, and the general public are not at any risk and do not need to take any protective action,” 

Reuters journalist Julie Steenhuysen reported that the whole incident was an accident. She elaborates more on the situation, “The potential exposure occurred after researchers working in a high-level biosecurity laboratory at the agency’s Atlanta campus failed to follow proper procedures to inactivate the bacteria. They then transferred the samples, which may have contained live bacteria, to lower-security CDC labs not equipped to handle live anthrax.”

The CDC also said that the inferior-security labs were demonstrating research on how to identify anthrax in an environment.There is a possibility that two of the three labs included could have aerosolized spores of anthrax..The main risk is that people obtain the infection by inhaling the spores, which is the deadliest way. 90 percent die, along with those who inhale anthrax could get a second stage infection. 

A positive factor is that those that may have been exposed have not shown any signs of an infection. The average developing time for an anthrax infection is five to seven days.